So you are at that stage in your life when you need to find a new job? Or are you planning to seek new carrier opportunities? Regardless of what you are planning to do, you must have a neat social profile.

Why? Because recruiters (and sometimes employers) will check your social profiles eventually and you don’t want them to see that zombie nurse costume you wore at last years Halloween party, do you?

Your social profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn are a mirror of who you are. Facebook represents your personal life while LinkedIn is more linked to your career and work.

If you want to impress recruiters or employers (or at least don’t make them all confused) you must update your social profiles in a right way. Here are some tips for putting your best foot forward on Facebook and LinkedIn:

Facebook

As mentioned before Facebook is a place when you can express yourself and showcase who you really are outside your work. However there is always a line, which you should not cross. Your Facebook profile should be set up in a way, that tells non-Facebook friends just the best parts of who you are. Here are few things that you should consider doing if you want your Facebook profile to look good in public:

Profile Picture: It should be casual. Everyone understands that Facebook is a social network and its not job related. You don’t need your profile picture to be professional headshot. In fact it would be quite awkward. Just show a positive picture that will represent who you really are.

Privacy settings: Facebook privacy settings should be your priority if don’t want to embarrass yourself. I am not saying that your profile is full of inappropriate and wild pictures, but you don’t want to show everything of what you post there. Change privacy settings so that only your friends, or the friends of your friends could tag you, see your pictures and posts. You can even put a privacy setting on each picture individually.

Work / Education info: We recommend keeping these sections public, updated, and consistent with your resume. Why? Because recruiters can advertise job ads on Facebook by choosing an audience to whom they want to show job ads, based on their interests, education and work.

LinkedIn

LikedIn is quite the opposite of what Facebook is. So no more goofy stuff or lame posts with puppies. This is a great place to showcase your professional side. Almost every recruiter will check your LinkedIn so you want it to look perfect. Here are few things you should do to make a great first impression.

Profile picture: Simply said, it should be professional. No pictures with silly glasses or fake moustaches. Professional headshot should be good enough.

Privacy settings: You want your LinkedIn profile to be without any privacy restrictions. There is nothing to hide, right? Your LinkedIn profile is like your online resume, which should be open for everyone who is interested in hiring you. You never know who might check your profile and you definitely don’t want to hide crucial information about yourself from them.

Work / Education info: Create a clear, focused description of your career interests and work experience, solicit endorsements, and show work samples. There is no such thing as too much information on your LinkedIn profile. Put it all on and impress your future employers with your professionalism and achievements.

It’s up to you to create that first impression with the help of your social profiles. You can make a great impression with a neat Facebook profile and a professional LinkedIn page, or you can embarrass yourself and never hear again from that company. However you decide, just remember one thing: once you put something on the Internet it will stay there forever. So think twice before you upload that picture or an article, so you won’t regret it.